High-security door devices which slide between an open and a closed position and which are used in detention or military facilities are well known in the art. Such doors are regulated by varying code requirements. The National Fire Protection Association (“NFPA”) mandates that under an emergency condition, doors shall not relock upon closing. (NFPA Life Safety Code, Section 101.) NFPA section 80 states that if a door has a self-closing feature achieved by powered operation, the door shall be capable of performing the self-closing feature for a minimum of 50 cycles when power service is lost.
Currently there is not a sliding security door device which can satisfy these standards; the corrections industry is in need of a detention sliding door device which meets the operations requirements of both life and fire-safety as mandated by the various codes.
There are a few security hardware manufacturers which provide corridor sliding door devices to the detention industry. All of these manufacturers fabricate sliding doors that open and close with the use of an electric rack and pinion, electric chain, or pneumatic drive. All of these prior art devices have a wheeled carriage that supports the detention door. The carriage moves across the opening by a sliding travel bar that deadlocks a vertical lock bar at the fully-closed or fully-open positions. All of these prior art devices deadlock the sliding door at the location of both the carriage and the bottom door guide.
These sliding door devices are generally used to control movement within detention or military facilities. This movement is along the paths of ingress and egress from the institutional buildings. A significant shortcoming of the prior art is that none of these devices meet the life safety requirements for emergency egress from such buildings. The prior art devices are configured to open and close with power applied. Another shortcoming is that if power is lost to the device, the doors do not have the ability to reclose in an emergency egress situation. A manual key may be used to override the deadlock and allow the door to be opened, but in the manual mode the door will stay at whatever position it is at when the manual operating effort has stopped, whether that be in an open or closed position. This invention disclosed herein meets these needs and overcomes other problems and shortcomings of the prior art.
The sliding door device disclosed in this application operates primarily as a corridor sliding door device with substantial improvements over the devices of the prior art. When placed into the emergency mode, the device disclosed herein will remove the deadlock in either the open or closed positions. The door will be powered to close, and the door will be allowed to open by overriding the closing pressure. When released, the door will move to the fully-closed position. The device disclosed herein is a “Life Safety” sliding door device that allows for egress movement upon closing. The door structure itself may provide a fire rating to meet various code requirements.